I Can Barely Breathe (7 page)

“Hello? This is Carver.”

“I got some news,” Tom said.

“What’d you find out?”

“This doctor we’re looking for is pretty
much untouchable. The military won’t let us anywhere near him.”

“Damn,” Carver said, as Julia grabbed his
free hand and interlocked their fingers.

“Once they started asking questions, trying
to find out who I was, I hung up.”

“Please tell me you called from a pay
phone.” Carver got a nervous knot in his stomach.

“Of course. Kattic says he’s got an idea on
how to find the doctor. So I’ll keep you posted.” Tom’s voice
sounded hopeful.

“OK, that’ll work.”

Carver put his communicator back in his
pocket and pulled his girl close. She rested her head on his chest,
near his heartbeat. His hand slid from her shoulder down her back
to her right hip. He could feel her under the thin cotton dress. He
was hard. Julia’s hand moved to his crotch, and his bulge got
bigger. She squeezed it, then unbuttoned his pants and shoved her
hand inside to stroke his long, hard shaft.

As she pulled his penis out, she brought her
face close, opened her lip-glossed lips and massaged the tip with
her tongue, then slipped all of it in her mouth. It was big for
her. She sucked it, softly at first and then a little harder. He
could feel the slightest hint of her teeth; it was the closest
Carver would ever get to heaven.

He savored the moment. His hand moved to her
ass, which was slightly elevated in the air. He squeezed her
cheeks, and his fingers made their way in between them, along with
the fabric of her dress. Her tongue and lips worked like a
slow-moving vibrator, caressing every inch of his dick. His free
hand found the back of her head, and he watched it bob up and down
with her motions. Trying to hold on as long as possible wasn’t an
option for Carver. Julia’s flawless technique and natural beauty
overpowered him. As he held his breath and pumped his warm juices
over her tongue, he felt her swallow three times.

She sucked what was left on the head of his
penis, then looked up and gave him a smile. Carver put himself away
and buttoned his pants back together. They sat in silence, both of
them with racing hearts.

***

The sound of twisting, snapping branches
opened Carver’s eyes. Julia was asleep in his lap. He heard a loud
pop from just beyond his front door and then what sounded like
leaves shaking violently. Something suddenly blocked the sun from
illuminating the closed drapes over the living room window. Then
silence. He shook Julia awake.

“What’s going on?” she asked, somewhat
groggy from her fifteen-minute nap.

“I need to get up. Something’s happening
outside.”

Her arms pushed her into a seated position,
as lightning flashed through a few of the nearby windows in the
house. Fat drops of rain hit the roof, and, in no time, Carver
could hear the water flushing from the gutters.

“It’s just a rainstorm,” Julia said.

“But it’s late October in Colorado. No rain
falls here from October to April. Besides, it’s not the rain I’m
concerned with.” He got up and walked to his front door, pulled it
open and stepped into the storm. A tree, taller than a twenty-story
building, its trunk the width of a ’55 Ford Crown Victoria sedan,
stood in his front yard.

Rain ripped through its canopy and dripped
down its bark-covered stalk. Thirty feet over was the driveway
where Carver’s car sat, untouched by the weather.

Julia rushed through the rain, the water
drops quickly spotting her white dress. Her feet stepped onto the
driveway’s dry concrete surface, leaving her footprints by the
Chevy. Carver—ignoring the storm—walked on the grass, his clothes
already soaked.

“How is this happening?” he yelled across
the thunder and held up both arms. “Most of the redwoods we have in
Colorado now are fossilized.”

“I have no idea! Look!” Julia pointed to
another tree; it sat slightly leaning but firmly planted in the
dirt road, twenty feet behind Carver’s car.

Carver lifted his head to find its branches
and leaves another twentysome stories up, sitting calmly, not
moving an inch, while the giant redwood in his yard was fighting
the forty-mile-per-hour winds. Lightning flashed in the distance,
casting Carver’s shadow against the house’s siding but leaving
Julia without one. Tired of the water and beginning to feel cold,
he rushed over to his girl to share in her weatherless zone. The
dry concrete was quick to absorb the water dripping from him,
turning it a darker color on contact. Carver looked above and
beyond his house to see the tops of hundreds of giant redwoods
scattered all throughout Sorrow’s Sky.

Carver and Kattic tucked their IDs under
their suit jackets, while Tom removed his badge from around his
neck and stuffed it in his pocket. They figured three men walking
into a private building wearing black suits looked suspicious
enough; no need to broadcast their connection to the local police
department. The tall ten-story building looked vacant. No locks
were on the doors. No guards were in the halls.

Kattic never explained to the guys who had
tipped him off; he told them it was better for everyone if the
details were left unexamined. The truth being, he had a “friend,” a
contact in the military. This friend was like him, an ally from the
same corner of Earth, someone who had worked his way into a
high-level position. The contact was tipped off to the name
Whittier and performed an internal search of the military’s
database. What came up were mostly classified documents, only
accessible via a twelve-digit passcode. But as Kattic’s ally dug a
little deeper, a single picture popped up—of a building. And under
the photograph were the numbers 302.

The men examined a directory board hanging
in the lobby. It informed them that Room 302 was on the fifth
floor. The place looked modern, as if it had been renovated within
the previous ten years. Carver noticed the fire extinguishers were
all fully charged and had been inspected only months ago. The halls
smelled of cleaning solution, and the floors were shiny. Trash cans
were empty with fresh bags lining them, and all the windows were
clean. They stepped into the elevator and selected number 5.

When the doors opened, Kattic peeked into
the hallway and gave the guys the all clear. They quickly found
Room 302 very close by, and they cautiously approached it. Tom
reached into his suit and unbuttoned the strap that covered his
firearm. Carver peered through the small window in the center of
the door. It appeared as nothing more than a messy lab.

“What do you see? Anyone in there?” Kattic
asked.

“No,” Carver replied. “I see tables with
equipment on them, papers, computers and a chalkboard with
equations I couldn’t solve in a million years. No Whittier.”

Kattic gripped the doorknob only to find it
locked. “All right, fellas, I’m not sure how much time we have
here, so I’m going to do something, and you can grill me about it
later. OK?”

A confused and simultaneous “OK?” echoed
through the halls. Kattic pulled a small rectangular device from
his suit. He activated it by pushing in a silver button. It powered
up with a quick hum and glowed dark blue. As he pressed the device
against the handle and rotated it, the security mechanism inside
turned with it, unlocking the door.

“What the hell wa—” Carver began.

“No, no! Later,” Kattic interrupted.

Upon entering the room, they were
immediately hit with a wall of cool air. They wasted no time and
searched for anything connecting Whittier to the chaotic events
that plagued their town. All of the equipment looked like everyday
lab tools. The papers were mostly research on dark energy and black
holes, torn from a selection of old books. A blood trail led across
the tile to one of the sinks.

“There’s blood over here. It’s pooled in
this sink,” Carver said. “Not a whole lot though. Probably just a
minor accident.”

“That ain’t from a paper cut,” Tom chimed
in, peering into the sink over Carver’s shoulder.

Moving on, Kattic and Tom opened up
cupboards and sifted through them. Carver checked the refrigerator
to find a watermelon sitting next to a jar of ketchup. The freezer
was empty. Large hands ticked away, as the wall clock informed the
guys it was set two hours fast. Passwords were required to access
the computers, just as they had expected. Carver looked at the tile
floor to find a small torn-off piece of paper. He knelt down and
picked it up.

“What is it?” Tom asked.

“It says, ‘Think of the craft.’ It’s
nothing.” He tossed the paper on the counter and shook his head.
“Let’s get out of here, before we get caught. There’s nothing
here.” Disappointed, they walked to the door and headed for the
elevator.

***

Gary Whittier stood in an empty field. He
felt proud. The afternoon sun poured down on him; he could feel it
penetrating his gray wool sweater, as a cool October breeze lightly
pelted his pressed black pants. The field was an easy choice for
such an experiment. With a large dirt lot and forest on three of
its four sides, what could be better?

Jon, however, was nervous, but he knew his
mission. It all seemed easy enough. And, by the time the day was
done, he would be able to call himself a true explorer. Not that he
ever strived for such a thing; his accomplishments were usually
more academic. He did, however, as a child, read books about men
exploring worlds beyond Earth. Those books, for a time, sparked in
him a need to do something truly great. This experiment would be
his one great contribution to the world. He imagined that, if the
project weren’t classified, he’d probably go down in the history
books.

A blue-and-chrome open-cockpit hovercraft
floated silently a few feet from them. Whittier had built the craft
to replace the actual crashed UFO from 1955. It was a dumbed down
version but for their purposes it would work fine. Inside the
machine was the oval metallic time device. The four coils of alien
symbols were mostly deciphered, their translation written next to
each symbol in black permanent marker. The doctor and Jon had been
busy. The first coil represented the month; the second, the day;
the third, the year; and the fourth, the time.

Gary had noted, just after the crash, which
symbols were already selected. He had assumed correctly that those
symbols indicated the exact time the craft had first appeared in
the sky that day, giving him the pieces of the puzzle he needed
most: a starting point.

Once the doctor decided to
think of the
craft
, it occurred to him that the vessel never intended to
touch the ground, but to remain detached, with no actual contact
with Earth other than the air around it. The hint he received also
helped him see that the presumed five occupants within the
hovercraft—based on the crashed UFO’s seat count—would most likely
power the device, which would feed on their consolidated
energies.

To replicate that energy, a large battery
was connected to the craft. He had learned the hard way, and
Sorrow’s Sky had paid the price, that if only one occupant’s energy
was transferred to the time device it failed to carry out the time
shift, bringing disastrous results that rippled out and affected
the flow of time—which caused past events to find the present.

Jon glanced beyond the empty field to the
town, littered with giant redwood trees. He wiped his damp hands on
his blue jeans and straightened the sleeves of his black suede
jacket, then nervously adjusted the collar of his white button-up
shirt. He was as ready as he’d ever be. The clock tower’s glowing
face showed three minutes to four. “When will the time shifts
stop?” he asked.

“I’m afraid they may continue to spread
through the town for a few more weeks, maybe a month. We really did
a number with this device. This is our chance to correct that. The
trees will be gone soon, and the townspeople will forget. Though I
did hear that a soldier came back to life at the cemetery.” He
laughed. “That probably scared the crap out of a few of the
townfolk.”

“I heard. How is that even possible?”

“Jon, that cut on your arm that opened up
back in the lab, where do you think it came from? You had a cut in
that very spot, years ago. Didn’t you?”

“How did you know that?” Jon asked, pulling
up his sleeve and running his fingers over the bandage.

“Because the past is blending with the
present. A few hours from now, the cut will be completely gone. You
get it?”

“I do. That’s scary. The townspeople must be
so… lost.”

“It’ll all end soon,” the doctor
reassured.

Gary handed Jon a small digital tablet.
“Once you’ve arrived, your only mission is to confirm the exact
month, day, time and year. When you’ve done that, reset the dials
to today’s date, October 24, 1962, at 5:00 p.m. on the dot. That’s
one hour from now. You don’t want to return before your past self
has left. I fear that may just confuse us all. Let’s try to avoid
an awkward encounter.”

“I got it.” Jon crawled into the hovercraft
and slid the battery between his feet. “I think I got it,” he
whispered.

“This is no different from any of the times
I’ve made the journey to the past. Now we’re just moving forward.
The first time’s always the best,” the doctor said, adjusting his
thick glasses.

With one breath of air Jon blurted out at
lightning speed, “What if I get there, and there’s a war going on,
or I land in the middle of some future concentration camp that one
day will exist right here in this very spot?” He took a deep—much
needed—breath in.

Gary laughed a little. “Oh, Jon, always
thinking of the worst-case scenario. If you find yourself in a
situation you can’t handle, reset the dials and come home.”